Denounced by Colleagues, Anti-Semitic Prof Threatens to Sue

April 18, 2008

Heidi Beirich

California State University, Long Beach (CSULB), Psychology Professor Kevin MacDonald (right) is facing more condemnation from his colleagues for his anti-Semitic research. In the past month, both the Jewish Studies Program and the History Department have issued statements (here and here) specifically distancing themselves from MacDonald’s hateful work. The Anthropology Department also has a statement under consideration. The statements all affirm MacDonald’s right to academic freedom and his tenured position on the CSULB faculty.

MacDonald’s views were outlined in the 2007 Intelligence Report exposé, “Promoting Hate,” which prompted his removal from teaching required undergraduate courses. MacDonald believes that Jews are impelled by genetic factors to undermine the majority populations of the societies they live in. In fact, MacDonald puts it like this in journalist Jon Entine’s new book, Abraham’s Children: “Jews do not act in the best interest of society. We need to systematically put in place some controls, call it discrimination if you will, to restore parity with other groups.” Since the turn of the millennium, MacDonald has also become a white supremacist activist. He has held leadership positions in several white supremacist groups, and in 2004 he was honored with a $10,000 prize for his work on the Jews by The Occidental Quarterly, a white supremacist publication where he currently serves on the editorial advisory board.

The latest twist in the long-running saga of Kevin MacDonald — a man who has bitterly complained that his colleagues and others are trying to suppress his free speech and academic freedom with their criticism — is the professor’s threat to sue faculty members who have negative things to say about him. His legal threats have sown fear on the CSULB campus, causing other faculty members, particularly in the psychology department of which he is a part, to stifle their opinions of his work.

MacDonald’s legal threats were made public in a memo (PDF) written by Psychology Department Chair Ken Green to his faculty earlier this month. Green’s letter was directed to those department members considering issuing a statement that would formally disassociate the department from MacDonald’s work. Several professors feel that the three statements already posted on the department website that reiterate the department’s commitment to diversity and denounce the use of psychological research as propaganda for racist groups are inadequate for that purpose. Green’s E-mail to his fellow faculty members instructed that MacDonald’s threat of legal action “is a factor that should be reviewed and considered.” No offer of a legal defense was made by school officials.

Green summarized MacDonald lawyer Thomas J. Finch’s demand letter, entitled “CSULB’s Campaign to Stigmatize, Defame and Constructively Terminate Professor Kevin MacDonald.” Finch, a Colorado general practice lawyer, writes that MacDonald has received “abusive treatment” and been “damaged” by his colleagues’ critiques of his work. According to Green, Finch’s letter complains that other faculty members have made “pejorative remarks about the scholarly integrity of [MacDonald’s] work” and that faculty are “‘chilling’ the exercise of [MacDonald’s] free speech rights and effectuating a ‘constructive’ termination of his employment.” The letter threatens a suit in federal court.

MacDonald’s views were a major topic of discussion during a panel hosted by CSULB’s LGBT Resource Center this Monday, April 14, entitled, “Hate Speech, Hate Crime and Far Right Movements.” Organized as part of the campus’ annual celebration of Diversity Week, several panelists denounced MacDonald’s work and asked the university’s administration to also condemn it. As a participant on the panel, I called on CSULB President King Alexander to exercise his own freedom of speech by denouncing MacDonald’s anti-Semitism and standing in solidarity with those faculty members who are being effectively silenced by MacDonald’s threats of legal action.

So far, Alexander has declined to speak out publicly against MacDonald’s work, though he has reportedly expressed concerns about it privately. Alexander’s silence stands in contrast with the actions taken by many other university presidents faced with racists or anti-Semites on their tenured faculty. In 1999, for example, Florida State University (FSU) President Talbot “Sandy” D’Alemberte, a fierce advocate of free speech, publicly called the racist views of psychology professor Glayde Whitney “very distasteful” and “very troubling.” Whitney, now deceased, believed black people to be “bigger in bone, smaller in brain” than whites. Whitney also authored a fawning introduction to neo-Nazi David Duke’s 1998 autobiography, My Awakening. Whitney described the former Klan leader’s plodding, 717-page tome as “a painstakingly documented, academically excellent work of socio-biological-political history that has the potential to ... change the very course of history.” To alleviate the concerns of minority students, FSU provided alternative instructors for students uncomfortable with taking Whitney’s courses.

There were others exercising their free speech rights, too — the kind of people, apparently, who see Kevin MacDonald as their truth-telling hero. For his efforts in helping to organize the Monday panel on hate groups, Jewish Studies Program Director and History Professor Jeffrey Blutinger found this comment on his voicemail: “Yeah, Jeff, you dirty, slimy Jew, you should be afraid, ashamed, ashamed, of the way you’ve attacked Dr. MacDonald. I think I’m going to buy some more of his books, make sure he gets even more money. I can just tell you, America would be a much better place if all you sneaky, sneaky kikes would get the hell out.”